Monday, April 25, 2016

British History - Shelf of Resources

I love history. I think at one time I even considered majoring in that at university. History is a big part of our learning. Over the past few years I have collected a few books on British history. Now we are using them as we study British history together.

I will share some of the books that are on my shelves and how I am using these.

British History by James P. Sobaugh - This is a High School Level curriculum but I felt that it wasn't enough for high school credit. It has short sections to read, a page or at the most 3 and an essay question. J is answering the essay questions but I am giving him some additional work. I am using this book as my guide but have added more reading to it.

Kingfisher Encyclopaedia of British History -- This is available as one volume or small books for various time periods. This is easy reading with lots of pictures and illustrations.

Oxford History of Britain and Ireland - This is a bit deeper of a book compared to Kingfisher. I have assigned some readings from here.

Britannia is a book just full os various stories. It is in chronological order.

2000 Years of Christian Faith in Britain - This is a book that I recently purchased. We have just read a bit in this book.

Our Island Story - I have that on my Kindle but I have been reading bits of that.

I also have British Literature by James Stobaugh and my plan is to add some of that to our learning as we go through the various time periods. We have just gotten to the Anglo-Saxons today so we will add that. My thought is to be able to give credit for both British Literature and British History.

Those are the major resources that I am using. I have a few other books on the shelves that I reference and some that we will read as we go through history.

I am teaching this at a high school level and yet working to keep Miss K interested. I will say she is still talking about Boudicca so I do know that she is listening and learning.

Some of the things that I have added to this to give it a bit more learning and assignments are maps, timeline, important people, readings, and a few tests as well as the essay questions. I will also add some of the assignments from British Literature.

Map - each week we have traced one map corresponding to what we are studying that week. So the first week we did a map during Roman time. This will be a graded assignment.

Timeline - we are creating a timeline and just adding details as we are going through. This will also be a graded assignment.

Additional Readings - I have assigned J some additional readings. These are just to give him additional learning and to prepare him for further courses and reading assignments. These are not graded.

Important People - As we go through our course, we are creating cards of various important people that we are learning about. This is graded and will be graded based on variety of people, neatness, and number of cards.

Essay questions - James Stobough's book has essay questions. These are just short questions about a paragraph. I think it is good to do these questions but I feel that just grading on essay alone is not enough.

Tests - There are tests with the James Stobough curriculum but again these are all essay. I also feel that there are bits missing so I will be writing my own tests. Miss K wants a test so I will have to give her one.

I feel that with the additional projects and assignments that this is a well-rounded course that will help us to understand British history.

We have covered Pre-historic and Roman history. I will share a bit more specifics on those times.